Vito Genovese

Vito Genovese (27 November 1897-14 February 1969) was the boss of the Genovese crime family from 1957 to 1969, succeeding Frank Costello and preceding Philip Lombardo.

Biography
Vito Genovese was born on 27 November 1897 in Risigliano, Naples, Italy, and his family moved to the United States in 1912 at the age of fifteen. He lived in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York City, and he befriended Lucky Luciano. During the early 1920s, he was employed by Joe Masseria and his gang, and he murdered Gaetano Reina in 1930 during the Castellammarese War. In 1931, he was also one of the gunmen who killed Masseria, doing the job alongside Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis, and Bugsy Siegel. In 1936, Genovese became the acting boss of Luciano's gang after he was arrested, becoming the first boss of the new Genovese crime family. The next year, he was exiled to Italy after murdering somebody, and he befriended Benito Mussolini's foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano, supplying him with cocaine. In 1943, he had anarchist journalist Carlo Tresca murdered in New York as a favor to the fascist government of Italy, and he returned home in September 1943 after the fascist government was overthrown during World War II. After returning home, he returned to leading the Genovese family, ordering Willie Moretti's murder in 1951 after Moretti broke omerta by cooperating with federal investigators. Genovese would struggle with Luciano for control of the family, murdering his ally Albert Anastasia in 1957, and he became the new boss of the family after Costello retired. Genovese would purge the family, and he became one of the most powerful mob bosses. However, he was imprisoned in 1958 on narcotics charges, and he died in prison in Springfield, Missouri in 1969 at the age of 71; his crime family remained strong in New York and New Jersey.